To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was a Danish writer primarily known for his fairy tales, such as “The Princess and the Pea” (1835) and “The Emperor’s New Suit” (1837), but he also wrote The Mulatto (1840), a play portraying the evils of slavery. In 1829, Andersen self-published a tale inspired by E. T. A. Hoffmann entitled “A Walk From Holmen’s Canal to the East Point of the Island of Amager in the Years 1828 and 1829”; it became his first major success. Andersen used the vernacular, which was unheard of in his day, and combined his unique imagination with folklore to tell stories that both children and adults could enjoy—which may be why he remains one of the most translated writers of all time. “The Will-o’-the-Wisps Are in Town” (1865) is among the most unusual of his fantasy tales in that it is entertaining but also a commentary on such tales.
The Will-o’-the-Wisps Are in Town
Hans Christian Andersen
Translated by H. P. Paull
THERE WAS A MAN who once had known a great many new fairy tales, but he had forgotten them, he said. The fairy tale that used to come to visit him no longer came and knocked at his door; and why didn’t it come any more? It’s true that for a year and a day the man hadn’t thought of it, hadn’t really expected it to come and knock; and it certainly wouldn’t have come anyway, for outside there was war and, inside, the misery and sorrow that war brings with it.
The stork and the swallow returned from their long journey, for they had no thought of danger. But when they arrived they found the nests burned, people’s houses burned, the fences smashed, yes, and some even completely gone, and horses of the enemy were trampling down the old grave mounds. Those were hard, cruel times; but they always come to an end.
And now those times were past, people said; but still no fairy tale came to knock at the door or gave any sign of its presence.
“It may well be dead and gone, like so many other things,” said the man. But then the fairy tale never dies!
More than a year passed, and he longed so for the fairy tale.
“I wonder if it will ever come back and knock again.” And he remembered so vividly all the various forms in which it had come to him—sometimes as young and charming as spring itself, as a beautiful maiden with a thyme wreath in her hair and a birch branch in her hand, her eyes shining as clear as the deep woodland lakes in the bright sunshine. Sometimes the fairy tale had come to him in the likeness of a peddler and had opened its pack and let the silver ribbons inscribed with old verses flutter out. But it had been best of all when it had come as an old grandmother, with silvery hair and such large and kindly eyes. She knew so well the tales of the old, old times, of even long before the princesses spun with golden spindles, and the dragons, the serpents, lay outside, guarding them. She told her tales so vividly that black spots would dance before the eyes of her listeners and the floor become black with human blood; it was terrible to see and to hear, and yet very entertaining, since it had all happened so long ago.
“Will she ever knock at my door again?” said the man, and gazed at the door until black spots appeared before his eyes and on the floor, and he didn’t know if it was blood or mourning crape from the dark and dismal days of yore.
As he sat there, the thought came to him that perhaps the fairy tale had hidden itself, like the princess in the very old tale, and if he should now go in search of it, and find it, it would shine in new splendor, lovelier than ever. “Who knows? Perhaps it is hidden in the discarded straw lying near the edge of the well. Careful, careful! Perhaps it’s hidden in a faded flower, shut up in one of the big books on the shelf!”
So the man went to one of the newest books and opened it to find out, but there was no flower there. It was a book about Holger Danske, and the man read how the whole story had been invented and put together by a French monk, that it was only a romance, “translated and printed in the Danish language,” and that since Holger Danske had never really lived he could never come again, as we have sung and wanted to believe. As with Holger Danske, so it was with William Tell; both were only popular legends, nothing we could depend on. Here it was all written down in a very learned manner.
“Yes, but I shall believe my own beliefs,” said the man. “No road grows where no foot has trod!”
So he closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and walked over to the fresh flowers on the window sill; perhaps the fairy tale had hidden itself in the red tulips with the golden-yellow edges, or in the fresh roses, or in the brilliantly colored camellias. But only sunshine lay among the flowers—no fairy tale.
“The flowers which grew here in the days of misery were much more beautiful; but one after another was cut off, woven into wreaths, and laid in coffins, with the flag placed over them. Perhaps the fairy tale was buried with them; but then the flowers would have known of it, and the coffin would have heard of it, and every little blade of grass that shot up would have told of it. The fairy tale never dies!
“Maybe it was here and knocked, but who had ears for it or would have thought of it? Then people looked darkly, gloomily, almost angrily, at the spring sunshine, the singing birds, and all the cheerful greenery; yes, and their tongues wouldn’t even repeat the merry old folk songs, and they were laid in the coffin with so much else that our heart cherished. The fairy tale may well have knocked but not been heard, and with no one to bid it welcome, it may have departed.
“I shall go out and search for it! In the country, in the woods, on the open beaches.”
Out in the country stands an old manor house with red walls, pointed gables, and a flag waving from the tower. The nightingale sings under the fringed beech leaves while it gazes at the blooming apple trees in the garden and thinks they are rose trees. Here the bees labor busily in the summertime, hovering around their queen with humming song. Here the autumn storm tells much of the wild chase, of the falling leaves, and of the generations of men that pass away. At Christmastime the wild swans sing on the open water, while in the old manor house the guests beside the fire are happy to hear the ancient songs and legends.
Down into the old part of the garden, where the great avenue of old chestnut trees invites the wanderer to pause in their shade, went the man who was seeking the fairy tale. Here the wind had once told him of “Valdemar Daae and His Daughters”; here the dryad in the tree—the fairy-tale mother herself—had told him “The Old Oak Tree’s Last Dream.” In our grandmother’s time clipped hedges stood here; now there grow only ferns and stinging nettles, hiding the broken fragments of old figures sculptured in stone; moss grows in their very eyes, but still they can see as well as ever, which the man seeking the fairy tale couldn’t, for he didn’t see it. Where could it be?
Hundreds of crows flew over him and the old trees, crying, “Caw! Caw!”
Then he left the garden and crossed the rampart surrounding the manor, into the alder grove. There a little six-sided house stands, with a poultry yard and a duck yard. In the midst of the living room in the house sat the old woman who managed everything and who knew exactly when every egg would be laid and when each chicken would creep out of its egg. But she wasn’t the fairy tale the man was seeking; she could prove that with the certificates of Christian baptism and vaccination that she kept in her chest of drawers.
Outside, not far from the house, there is a hill covered with red thorn and broom; here lies an old gravestone, brought here many years ago from the churchyard of the near-by town in memory of one of the most honored councilmen of the neighborhood. Carved in stone, his wife and five daughters, all with folded hands and stiff ruffs, stand about him. If you looked at them for a long time it would affect your thoughts, which in turn would react on the stone, so that it would seem to tell of olden times. At least that was the way it had been with the man who was searching for the fairy tale.
As he approached, he noticed a living b
utterfly sitting right on the forehead of the sculptured councilman. The insect flapped its wings, flew a little bit away, then returned to sit close by the gravestone, as if to call attention to what was growing there. Four-leaved clovers grew there, seven in all, side by side. When good luck comes, it comes in bunches. The man plucked all the clovers and put them into his pocket. “Good luck is as good as ready cash,” thought the man, “though a new, beautiful fairy tale would be better still.” But he could find none here.
The sun went down, big and red, and vapor rose from the meadow; the Bog Witch was at her brewing.
That evening the man stood alone in his room, gazing out upon the sea, over the meadow, moor, and beach. The moon shone brightly; the mist over the meadow made it look like a great lake; indeed, legend tells us it once was a lake, and in the moonlight the eye can understand these myths.
Then the man thought of how he had been reading that Holger Danske and William Tell never really lived; yet they do live in the faith of the people, just like the lake out there, living evidence of the myth. Yes, Holger Danske will return again!
As he stood thinking, something struck heavily against the window. Was it a bird, an owl or a bat? We don’t let those creatures in even when they knock. But the window burst open by itself, and an old woman looked in on the man.
“What is this?” he said. “What do you want? Who are you? Why, she’s looking in at the second-floor window! Is she standing on a ladder?”
“You have a four-leaved clover in your pocket,” she replied. “Or rather you have seven, but one of them has six leaves.”
“Who are you?” asked the man.
“I am the Bog Witch,” she said, “the Bog Witch who brews. I was busy at my brewing. The tap was in the cask, but one of those mischievous little marsh imps pulled it out and threw it over here, where it hit your window. Now the beer’s running out of the barrel, and nobody can make money that way!”
“Please tell me—” said the man.
“Yes, but wait a little,” said the Bog Witch. “I have something else to do right now.” Then she was gone.
But as the man was about to close the window, she stood before him again.
“Now it’s fixed,” she said, “but I’ll have to brew half the beer over again tomorrow, that is, if it’s good weather. Well, what did you want to know? I came back, for I always keep my word, and besides, you have seven four-leaved clovers in your pocket, one of which has six leaves; that demands respect, for that type grows beside the roadside, and not many people find them. What did you want to ask me? Don’t stand there looking foolish; I have to go back to my tap and my barrel very quickly.”
Then the man asked her about the fairy tale, and if she had met it in her journeys. “For the love of my big brewing vat!” said the Bog Witch. “Haven’t you told enough fairy tales? I certainly think most people have had enough of them. There are plenty of other things for you to do and take care of. Even the children have outgrown fairy tales! Give the small boys a cigar, and the little girls a new dress; they’ll like that much better. But listen to fairy tales! No, indeed, there are certainly other things to attend to, more important things to do!”
“What do you mean?” the man asked. “And what do you know about the world? You never see anything but frogs and Will-o’-the-Wisps!”
“Beware of the Will-o’-the-Wisps!” said the Bog Witch. “They’re out—they’re on the loose! That’s what we should talk about! Come to me at the marsh, for I must go there now; there I’ll tell you about it. But you must hurry and come while your seven four-leaved clovers, one of them with six leaves, are still fresh and the moon is still high!”
And the Bog Witch was gone.
The town clock struck twelve, and before the last stroke had died away the man had left the house, crossed the garden, and stood in the meadow. The mist had cleared away; the Bog Witch had finished her brewing. “You took your time getting here!” said the woman. “Witches move much faster than men; I’m glad I’m a witch.”
“What do you have to tell me now?” asked the man. “Anything about the fairy tale?”
“Is that all you can ever ask about?” said the woman.
“Is it something about the poetry of the future that you can tell me?”
“Don’t become impatient,” said the woman, “and I’ll answer you. You now think only of poetry. You ask about the fairy tale as if she were the mistress of everything. She’s the oldest, all right, but she always passes for the youngest; I know her very well. I was young once, and that’s no children’s disease! Once I was quite a pretty little elf maiden, and I danced with the others in the moonlight, listened to the nightingale, went into the forest, and met the fairy tale maiden there, where she was always running about. Sometimes she spent the night in a half-opened tulip or in some field flower; sometimes she would slip into the church and wrap herself in the mourning crape that hung down from the altar candles.”
“You seem to know all about it,” said the man.
“I should at least know as much as you do,” said the Bog Witch. “Fairy tales and poetry—yes, they’re like two pieces of the same material. They can go and lie where they wish. One can brew all their talk and goings-on and have it better and cheaper. I’ll give it to you for nothing; I have a whole cabinet full of bottles of poetry, the essences, the best of it—both sweet and bitter herbs. I have all the poetry people might want, bottled up, and on holidays I put a little on my handkerchief to smell.”
“Why, these are wonderful things you’re telling me!” said the man. “You actually have poetry in bottles?”
“More than you can stand,” said the woman. “I suppose you know the story of ‘The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf,’ so that she would not soil her shoes. That has been written down and printed, too.”
“I told that story myself,” said the man.
“Yes, then you know it, and you know, too, that the girl sank right into the earth, to the Bog Witch, just as the Devil’s grandmother was there on a visit to inspect the brewery. She saw the girl come down and asked to have her as a souvenir of her visit, and she got her, too. I received a present from her which is of no good to me—a regular traveling drugstore, a whole cabinet full of bottled poetry. The grandmother told me where to put the cabinet, and it’s still there. Now look here! You have your seven four-leaved clovers in your pocket, one of which has six leaves, so you should be able to see it!”
Sure enough, in the middle of the marsh was what looked like a great gnarled alder block, and that was the grandmother’s cabinet. She explained that it was open to her and to everyone else in the world at any time, if they just knew where it was. It could be opened in front or at the back and at every side and corner; it was a real work of art and yet appeared to be only an alder stump. Poets of all countries, and especially of our own land, had been reproduced here; the essence of each had been extracted, refined, criticized, distilled, and then put into bottles. With great skill—as it’s called, if one doesn’t want to call it genius—the grandmother had taken a little of this poet and a little of that, added a touch of deviltry, and then corked up the bottles for the use of future ages.
“Please let me see,” said the man.
“All right, but there are much more important things to listen to,” said the Bog Witch.
“But we’re right here at the cabinet,” said the man, as he looked inside it. “Why, here are bottles of all sizes. What’s in this one, and what’s in that one over there?”
“This is what they call may-balm,” said the woman. “I haven’t tried it myself, but I know that if you spill only a little drop of it on the floor, you will see before you a lovely forest lake with water lilies, flowering rushes, and wild mint. You need pour only two drops on an old exercise book, even one from the lowest class in school, and the book becomes a complete, fragrant play that is good enough to be performed and to fall aslee
p over, so strong is its smell. It must be as a compliment to me that they labeled the bottle ‘The Brew of the Bog Witch.’
“Here stands the bottle of scandal. It looks as if there is only dirty water in it, and, of course, it is dirty water, but with sparkling powder, three ounces of lies, and two grains of truth, stirred with a birch twig, not taken from a stalk pickled in salt and used on the bleeding backs of sinners, nor a piece of the schoolmaster’s switch—no, but taken right from the broom that had been used to sweep the gutter.
“Here stands the bottle with the pious poetry set to psalm music. Every drop has a sound like the slamming of hell’s gates and has been made from the blood and sweat of punishment. Some say it’s only the gall of a dove; but doves are the gentlest of animals; they have no gall, say people who don’t know their natural history.
“Here stood the bottle of all bottles; it took up half of the cabinet. It was the bottle with ‘Stories of Everyday Life,’ and it was covered with both hog skin and bladder so that it couldn’t lose any of its strength. Every nation could get its own soup here; what would come forth would depend upon how you’d turn and tip the bottle. Here was an old German blood soup with robber dumplings, and there was also thin peasant soup, with genuine court officials, who lay like vegetables on the bottom, while fat, philosophical eyes floated on the top. There was English-governess soup, and French potage à la coq, made from chicken legs and sparrow eggs and, in Danish, called ‘cancan soup.’ But the best of all soups was Copenhagen soup; the whole family said so.”
Here stood “Tragedy,” in a champagne bottle; it could make a popping noise, and that was as it should be. “Comedy” looked like fine sand to throw into people’s eyes—that is, the more refined comedy; the broader kind was also bottled, but consisted only of future playbills; there were some excellent comedy titles, such as, Dare You Spit in the Machinery?, One on the Jaw, The Sweet Donkey!
The Big Book of Classic Fantasy Page 41